NIFarious Ideas: Tagxedo

At the Neuroscience Information Framework, we are always keeping an eye on the latest and greatest in data visualization techniques. One classic data visualization is the tag cloud, which illustrates frequency of words in a document by increasing the size of the word. For example, the tag cloud below contains the search terms at NIF over the last month. 

This weeks NIFarious idea is Tagxedo, a tag cloud generator with a little bit of flare. Tagxedo creates tag clouds from a number of sources, including a webpage, twitter account, RSS feed, search results and more. Whats more, Tagxedo formats the tag cloud into the shape of a predefined image. For example, the tag cloud below was generated from the text at www.neuinfo.org and formatted in the shape of a sea turtle.

There are many great examples of various tag clouds on their website, and with the ability to upload your own images the possibilities are almost endless. Tagxedo takes the classic tag cloud and gives it a little bit more, and for that we thank you Tagxedo.

 

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NIFarious Ideas is a regular weekly column on the NIF Blog that appears every Friday. We seek to highlight the avant-garde, the dangerous, the progressive, the cutting edge in software tools, databasing, ontologies, searching, data collecting and distributing, and of course, neuroscience trends. Join us each Friday — Be NIFarious!